Pilot's home airport is first workplace, only distance allowance, BFH rules

A pilot's stationing airport is his first place of workBundesfinanzhof even where most of his characteristic duties happen on boardBundesfinanzhof, because a parked aircraft still belongs to the airportBundesfinanzhof. In its judgment of 9 September 2026 (VI R 4/25, STRE202610196) the VI Senate of the Bundesfinanzhof rejects the revisionBundesfinanzhof against the Finanzgericht Köln judgment of 4 December 2024 and orders the plaintiffs to bear the revision costs.

The plaintiffs were jointly assessed for 2018. The husband flies for A-AG and has been assigned by employment law to stationing airport XBundesfinanzhof since 2014. In the dispute year he flew long-haul and had to be at the airport with the crew one hour and 50 minutes before departure. He entered through a separate A-AG entrance, used a cable station for documents and updates for about half his flights, met the crew for at most five minutes, then walked to the aircraft.

In the cockpit he transferred flight data from his notebook into the aircraft system, organised and monitored refuelling, and performed the mandatory pre-departure safety and function checks, reviewing error messages and ordering remediation of defects affecting airworthiness. He usually delegated the external check to a co-pilot.

The plaintiffs claimed the home-to-airport journeys under business-travel principles. The tax office allowed only the distance allowance, and the Finanzgericht dismissed the claim. The Senate agreesBundesfinanzhof: the plaintiff had his first place of work at airport X within the meaning of section 9(4) of the EinkommensteuergesetzBundesfinanzhof, so the journeys earn only the EntfernungspauschaleBundesfinanzhof — 0.30 Euro per full kilometre for each working day under section 9(1) sentence 3 no. 4 in the 2018 version.

A first place of work under section 9(4) sentence 1 is the fixed facility of the employer to which the employee is permanently assignedGesetze IM Internet. A large one exists where many resources stand in a delimited organisational, technical or economic connection with the employer's activityBundesfinanzhof, such as an airportBundesfinanzhof (VI R 40/16, VI R 36/18, VI R 6/21). An airport covers the entire delimited, developed and coherently organised site, including aircraft in their assigned parking positionsBundesfinanzhof: the Finanzgericht Berlin-Brandenburg agreed on 18 September 2025 (14 K 14094/23), while the Finanzgerichte Nürnberg of 6 December 2023 and Hamburg of 24 November 2022 took the contrary view.

An aircraft itself cannot be a first place of work for lack of fixityBundesfinanzhof, as the Senate had already held in its earlier judgment of 26 February 2014 (VI R 68/12). That matters only once the aircraft leaves its standBundesfinanzhof: with that step it enters flight operationBundesfinanzhof, detaches from the airportBundesfinanzhof, and becomes an independent mobile workplaceBundesfinanzhof.

Where the employee is assigned to a site by employment law, he must additionally perform there at least to a small extent contractually owed, profession-typical dutiesBundesfinanzhof, following the judgments of 4 April 2019 (VI R 27/17) and 11 April 2019 (VI R 40/16). Here the permanent assignment to airport X since 2014 is undisputed. Even leaving the building activities aside, the parked cockpit and on-board pre-flight work — refuelling and the mandatory checks — are quantitatively and qualitatively sufficientBundesfinanzhof. That they were performed on board a movable aircraft changes nothing while it stands parkedBundesfinanzhof, just as a rescue vehicle belongs to the rescue station while stationed there under the judgment of 30 September 2020 (VI R 11/19). The dustman case of 2 September 2021 (VI R 25/19) differs: that plaintiff had performed only minor duties at the depot.

Legal basis is section 9(1) sentence 3 no. 4 and section 9(4) of the EinkommensteuergesetzBundesfinanzhof as applied in BFH VI R 4/25 of 9 September 2026.